Legal Status By Country
See also: Coca in BoliviaOutside of South America, most countries' laws make no distinction between the coca leaf and any other substance containing cocaine, so the possession of coca leaf is prohibited. In South America coca leaf is illegal in both Paraguay and Brazil.
In the Netherlands, coca leaf is legally in the same category as cocaine, both are List I drugs of the Opium Law. The Opium Law specifically mentions the leafs of the plants of the genus Erythroxylon. However, the possession of living plants of the genus Erythroxylon are not actively prosecuted, even though they are legally forbidden.
In the United States, a Stepan Company plant in Maywood, New Jersey has a license to legally import coca leaf. The company manufactures pure cocaine for medical use and also produces a cocaine-free extract of the coca leaf, which is used as a flavoring ingredient in Coca-Cola. Other companies have 2011 registrations with the DEA to legally import coca leaf according to 2011 Federal Register Notices for Importers, including Johnson Matthey, Inc, Pharmaceutical Materials; Mallinckrodt Inc; Penick Corporation; and the Research Triangle Institute. According to the Bolivian press, Coca-Cola legally imported 204 tons of coca leaf in 1996.
Read more about this topic: Coca
Famous quotes containing the words legal, status and/or country:
“We should stop looking to law to provide the final answer.... Law cannot save us from ourselves.... We have to go out and try to accomplish our goals and resolve disagreements by doing what we think is right. That energy and resourcefulness, not millions of legal cubicles, is what was great about America. Let judgment and personal conviction be important again.”
—Philip K. Howard, U.S. lawyer. The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America, pp. 186-87, Random House (1994)
“The influx of women into paid work and her increased power raise a woman’s aspirations and hopes for equal treatment at home. Her lower wage and status at work and the threat of divorce reduce what she presses for and actually expects.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“[F]rankly ... it was perfectly true that I had, for over a year, expressed the opinion that Indo-China should not go back to France but that it should be administered by an international trusteeship. France has had the country ... for nearly one hundred years, and the people are worse off than they were at the beginning.... France has milked it for one hundred years. The people of Indo-China are entitled to something better than that.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)